“Oh, he’ll be all right,” Gurdy decided, “but it’s been an awful jolt.”
The Englishwoman put a hand to her mouth which shivered.
“Awful.... Oh, I don’t know, Gurdy!”
“Don’t know what, Lady Ilden?”
“I don’t know that he’s right in sacrificing himself.... I don’t know that he’s wrong. Chivalry.... I can’t understand how two people can be such beasts as this woman and her husband.... Deliberate torture.... Isn’t it revenge?”
Gurdy didn’t answer but asked, “You’ll go on from Japan to—”
“South Africa. I’ve some friends at Capetown.... She’s that brutal age, when it doesn’t matter if we get what we want.... Oh, my dear boy, this is hideous! It’s revenge!”
“I don’t think so,” he said, “I saw Russell at the office this morning. ‘Todgers’ doesn’t open in Baltimore until Monday. He says that Rand talked to him in Philadelphia before this happened and wanted Russell to persuade Mark to risk bringing the play to New York and that was after Mark had told him he wouldn’t bring it in. Russell thinks she—Cora Boyle—is simply crazy over Rand. Russell’s seen a good deal of them. He says Rand talked to her by ’phone from Philadelphia on Tuesday. She may have put him up to this. I don’t think it’s revenge. She’s got nothing to revenge. Mark’s always been decent to her.”
Olive smiled and then whispered, “Do take care of Mark.” A porter came bawling, “All aboard,” and groups broke up along the train. Margot swung and vanished into the coach. Olive said, “She’s stunned. She won’t realize she’s been a beast to Mark for a while.” Gurdy mumbled something about points of view. The tired woman cut him short with, “Rot, old man! She didn’t play fair. She lied. Do take care of Mark. Good-bye.”
Gurdy walked away and a clerk from Mark’s office brushed by him with a papered load of yellow roses. The boy turned and saw Olive take these against her black furs. She stood graciously thanking the clerk for a moment, smiling. Then she stepped into the vestibule and the train stirred. Gurdy walked on. The colossal motion of the crowd in the brilliant station was a relief and a band hammered out some military march by a Red Cross booth. His spirit lifted; the strained waiting of three days was done; Margot was gone; Gurdy wouldn’t have to watch Mark’s piteous effort at normality. He found his uncle alone in the office at the 45th Street Theatre, studying a model for a scene and swiftly Mark asked, “I sent Jim with some—”